Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-10-07
THE GREAT GUERRILLA.
A Correspondent Who Looks at Guam.
treII's Better Side-The Char.
acter of the Warfare
In Which He Was Engaged-Fighting the
Devil With Fire-Exae gerations OF a
Recently Published Story.
Kansas City Times.


noted guerrilla, the most noted that ever
lived to make the pages OF history splen-
did with indispensable daring and re-
pulsive with torrents of blood.
The article in question is in the shape
Of q correspondence to the Philadelphia
Press from Canal Dover, Ohio, where it
is reported that Quantrell's mother now
lives at great age, reading her Bible
daily and watching and waiting for the
return of that boy whom she idolized and
whose death she denies with vehemenCe
that bears but additional evidence to the
old, old story OF mothers faith and a
mothers devotion.
Perhaps no article as long as the one to
the Press was ever filed with more mac
curacies and misstatements. Harsher
terms for its Characterization might be
f tiugly employed, but when one pro.
poses to discuss q somewhat noted his
tOTical character from purely historical
standpoint, there is no need for cpl
thets.
We pass by without comment the
biographical portion of the ar
tiCle, because it is not possible to take
hold of the fogs Of the night Or the mists
of the morning, and come directly to the
history of Qusntrell pure and simple.
The Canal Dover correspondent first
calls him in substance q bandit, g high
way robber, murderer, butcher, the
slayer OF women and children, devil in
csrnste, an str0cious tiend and whatever
else came handy to express rage, hatred,
and malignanCy.
Qusntrell, in accordance with an act
passed by the Confederate Congress pro-
viding for the organization of a corps of
what were called partisan rangers, Was
duly commissioned colonel of such by
the then Secretary of War, James A. Sed-
don, and ordered to Missouri TO raise a
regiment.
He came and began to recruit in Jack
son county. As is well known by many
that the war, as far as this portion of
Missouri is concerned, began in 1856
Much blood had already been shed in
Kansas, and all along the border gener-
ally. Men OF the two sections hated one
another to the death, and were in fit
condition to do any number of terrible
deeds when Fort Sumter was fred upon.
Instantly there came to Quantrel q
number of young men eager for war.
They knew nothing of It's dangers or its
h2rdships, and they cared less. They
knew well that they could ride and shoot,
and that they were not afraid. Beyond
this they would see. Other bands Of
gUerrillss were formed in other portions
of the state, and what Was called bush
Whacking began immediately.
Across the line General James H. Lane
organized some formidable Kansas forces
for service along the border and over it,
too, on many memorable and bloody &C.
To1D
son had s famous regiment. In Mis-
miIltis companies in sll directions,
fought the secessionists wherever
they could find them, and hunted gueIil-
las when the chances were anything ike
equal for an advantageous encounter.
Thus hell was organized in the border
counties, which existed for four We rs,
snd which sent forth on either side to
slay snd be slain some of the brsvest,
most deadly, and some Of the most terri
Gle men known to Gil the records of civil
W2r.
From out this mutual chaos Of waste
and pilIsge, fire, smoke and blo0dshed,
the gueriIlss emerged. Free to come and
go. Bouud by no enlistment snd de
pendent upon no bounty. Hunted by one
nation aud deprecated By the other.
Prodigal of life and property. Fore
most in every foray and last in every
r0ut. Content to die savagely and st
bay when from under the dead steed
the wounded order could not extricate
himself. MeTcifuI rarely and me-
CHESS often. Loving liberty in blind,
idolstrous fashion, hsf reality and half
superstition. Holding no crime as bad
as that CT cowardice. Courteous to Wo-
men amid all the wild license of pillage
and slaughter. Steadfest as faith to
cemradeship or frie1d. Too serious for
boastfulness, and too nesr the unknown
to deceive themselves with vanity En-
inently practical, because constantly en-
vironed. Starved to-day and feasted to-
morrow. Victorious in this combat or
decimsted in that. Receiving no quarter
and giving none. Astonishing pursuers
by the sWiftness Of retreat, or shocking
humanity by the completeness of e mas
sscre. a sable fringe on the blood
red garments of civil war, or
& perpetual cut-throat in am
bush Ia the midst Of regular
armies, is it shy wonder that the, guer-
rillia organization Came to have captains
and leaders and discipline and language
and fsstness and hiding places, and ter
rible banner unknown 10 the winds, and
g terrible name that still lives as & wrath
faI and accusing thing from the Iowa line
TO the Pacific ocean?
Men stood forth as leaders by the IN
mistakable right of superior address and
undaunted courage. There was q kind
OF aristocracy of daring wherein the hum
blest might win crown or establish g
dynasty. Respect for personal proWess
begat discipline, snd scipline-strepgth-
ened by the terrible pressure of outside
circumstances-keptp esce in the midst of
an organization ostersibly without gov
eminent and without any flag but the
black one.
Qusntrell became chief becSuse his
intellect dominated that Of all his fol-
lowers. He could not have been drawer,
but he might have been and was cooler
than many Of them. His aptitude for the
wsrfGre he was engaged in was simply